Joshua VII
by Lenin Jones
Summary: Joshua is a small system of no tactical value, but the UNSC and the Covenant fight fiercely for control over it, for a Covenant defeat could bring the UNSC's second wind into the near-hopeless war.
1. Dalton

_Part one --- _Dalton__

PFC Jack Dalton's fingers ran over the familiar, cold steel stock of his MA5B Assault Rifle. He pulled back the bolt and inserted a magazine as the Pelican drop-ship he was riding in neared the landing zone. The radio in his helmet boomed orders from his commander, he sounded panicked. 

"It's a hot LZ. Heavy enemy resistance. Additional, heavy weaponry will be dropped via Pelican after all Marines are on the beach. In range – dropping bay doors in three… two… one…" 

 The doors in the rear of the Pelican dropped slowly, revealing the other fifteen drop-ships in formation, each initiating touch-and-go landing procedures, their bay doors also dropping. Dalton, sitting five seats from the door, had to stretch his neck to even see the sandy beach below them. As the sand became visible, so did the reddish-purple armor of the Covenant troops below. The sight of the troops made his stomach turn. It would be his first time seeing combat, and this thought wouldn't leave his mind until – only a split second later – a Pelican flying in formation behind them was struck by a blast of green plasma.  The Pelican's right thruster gave way, casing the drop-ship to lose its orientation. The left thruster sputtered and went dead. It seemed to hang in the air for a moment before it plunged to the ground. As it fell, Dalton could see his fellow marines trying furiously to unbuckle their safety harnesses so they could try to dive from the ship. Even if they would accomplish this feat – Dalton would never know, as the ship dropped from his view almost right away – it would be in vein; they did not have parachutes.  

                His Commander started yelling again, this time giving orders. Dalton was too pre-occupied with pondering his immediate future to listen. Next to him, Pvt. Tim Schultz grabbed Dalton's collar and with a look composed of terror and lunacy he screamed, "I can't believe this is actually happening! I'm going to kill fifty of those goddamned bastards!" The bay of the Pelican erupted in the shouts of the marines in it as the Pelican touched down. The harnesses on the seats released, and the ten marines ran onto the beach amidst a chorus of  "Go! Go! Go!" 

                Time seemed to stop as the PFC from a small town in the Midwest United States looked around the beach. He was nearly two light-years from his home planet, yet the water still smelled salty, the air crisp, and the clouds in the sky cotton-white. It was just like the way he remembered. He was only on a beach once before. When he was fifteen, his family traveled to Daytona Beach in Florida. If he closed his eyes, he thought he'd hear the shouts of children having a good time, riding the waves and building sand castles. His train of thought was shattered when bursts of plasma buzzed through the air and began impacting behind him. His mind clicked off and his instincts took over. He trained his rifle on the nearest enemy and fired off a three round burst of fire into the midsection of the short alien. He keeled over, still firing his plasma-pistol into the sand beneath him, and collapsed in on himself. There were one hundred and forty marines on the beach sixteen seconds into the mission, and Dalton had scored the first official kill of the operation. Rounds popped from rifles all around him, and the group of ten marines that composed his drop team ran for cover behind a large metal object placed by the Covenant to hinder Pelican landings. 

                Corporal Craig Billiard was highest ranked marine in the group, and was therefore designated group leader. "Okay, we need to reach that mound up there, all one-forty-of us. Its about a twenty meter sprint.  On my mark, we stand and each fire ten rounds at an enemy. Schultz, Martinez, and Brisbeau, cook off grenades and fire them at our ten, twelve, and two, respectively. Okay, ready? Three…two… one… MARK!" The marines leapt to their feet and fired bursts of fire into the line of Covenant forces. About half of the rounds met their marks and the enemies fell. The other three marines threw grenades in front of the group about ten meters out, causing a smattering of Covenant grunts to leap for cover, most of them being unsuccessful. Behind them, a Pelicans' engines roared to full power, and it hovered fifteen meters off the sand. It stayed in that position for a moment, and then the .50 caliber mini-guns opened fire into the Covenant line ahead, killing about ninety of the one hundred and ten enemies. Corporal Billiard shouted for the platoon to move forward to the mound he motioned to earlier. The marines stood and ran to the position in a loose arc formation, guns leveled, ready to fire with a squeeze of the trigger. Billiard's team was the first to reach the mound, he signaled for his men to crouch, and called over PFC Charles Brisbeau, the platoon's sniper. "Check ahead. See if we're going to need the heavy weaponry." Brisbeau nodded and looked through the scope of his S2 AM sniper rifle. "Corporal, I'd get on the horn and call for them. It looks like we're going to need all they can give us."


	2. Garret

_Part two --- _Garret

The plans called for the Pelicans on this particular mission to touch-and-go, meaning that the VTOL engines would never turn off, and hardly any contact would be made between the ship and the sandy beach, and the ten marines in the back would jump off. The Pelicans would then fire the engines to full-burn, takeoff, then rendezvous with the _Over Soul_, a UNSC frigate just out of the Joshua system. Six Pelicans would take supplies, including M12 "Warthog" Reconnaissance Vehicles, M19 SSM Rocket Propelled Grenade Launchers, and M90 Shotguns, and the other nine would take a total of ninety additional Marines. 

First Lieutenant Elaine Garret wrestled with the yoke of her Pelican, _Emu Farm_ as another blast rocked the drop-ship.  One Pelican had already gone down, taking the pilot and all of its passengers with it, and two others had taken critical damage, enough to severely hinder their ability to make it back to the _Over Soul._ The orders were far from black and white. The Pelicans were on their own, and were to fend for themselves; a highly unorthodox directive, but it was understandable what with the way the war was going. Red lights blinked and a klaxon blared in the _Emu's_ cockpit. Garret looked down to the console where the red status indicator lights were. 

                "Damn." She mumbled to herself. Both engines were overheating badly, and the only way she could fix that would be to cut the power to them entirely. She maneuvered the ship as close to the beach as she could, then cut the engines. It fell only about a meter, but it was a long meter for a fifteen-ton space ship to fall. The ship hit hard, jostling something in the hold area loose. Elaine reached across her chest to unbuckle her safety harness, but before she could release the latch, the entire console of the Pelican lit up red, and the Heads-Up Display had "ENGINE FIRE – CRITICAL" blinking in large, red, block letters. Elaine froze in position. This kind of thing doesn't happen everyday. The Pelican's VTOL engines were fragile. They weren't very big, but they put out vast amounts of energy, and at top speeds or when they were in a prolonged hover state like in a touch-and-go, they tended to glow a light blue. When the _Emu's_ engines were cut they were over-heating, and now that they sustained critical damage, one was bound to burst into flames. Action had to be taken quickly, otherwise, the engine would explode, and a Pelican with only one engine is certainly not going to leave the atmosphere of a planet. Garret thought for a moment, and then flipped a toggle switch on the console. The cockpit stopped blinking red, rather turned solid red. "Emergency mode activated." An artificially calm computer voice said. "Empty emergency coolant tanks on wing one into engine one." Said the Lieutenant. The right side of the ship rumbled as a bright liquid flowed through it, and into the flaming engine. Steam shot into the air, emitting a loud hiss. The fire stopped, and the cockpit returned to its normal state; the Pelican was ready to fly again.

                Moments later, the Pelican was airborne again, and hovered fifteen meters in the air. Lt. Garret was about to go to critical power in order to leave the system and rendezvous with the _Over Soul_ as soon as she possibly could, when a group of grenade explosions from the ground caught her attention. A platoon of marines was pinned down behind a Covenant Anti-Landing Craft spike. Garrett flipped a switch next to the yoke and a red crosshair appeared on the view screen, and the HUD showed: ".50 cal ARMED". She moved the yoke around until the crosshair was over a group of Covenant grunts firing at the pinned marines and squeezed the trigger. The guns shot lead bolts into the grunts, and bright blue blood began spraying about. The sand under them was entirely blue. Brass shell casings soundlessly fell to the sandy earth below. Garret trained her sights onto another Covenant platoon and fired into them, with the same results. When the beach was clear, she swung the ship around, pushed the rudders all the way forward, and the ship's engines roared to life, propelling the craft out of the atmosphere of the planet Joshua VII and into the comforting embrace of friendly air-space.


End file.
